one weekend where the weather was not so nice but having a holiday break the next, we decided to check out this mall in the middle of nowhere. a random mall and a random activity was chosen just because it was a 3 day break. (i really believed that the holiday was the only reason why we visited in the first place.) this was aeon lake town mall weekend.
our housemate brought this up when we had no other activity for the 3 day holiday. yesterday we went to a summer festival down south, today is a relaxing day inside a mall up north.
40 minutes of travel time with 2 train transfers, it surely was not the most accesible. so why did we even come here? i think this was chosen also partly because it was rainy and staying indoors was the best we could do.
upon arrival, we were greated by the large swarm of people, mainly families. in my opinion, holidays are best spent with families so seeing so many of them today makes me so happy. although seeing lots of naughty kids are draining, at least they get to play outside with their families.
we immediately searched for the food court when we arrived. hunger is a difficult foe.
we arrived around 12:30, expecting to avoid the other hungry folks. but no, this place just had so many of them. we had to transfer to a different mall building, the mall had three of them one of which was an outlet building.
it was only at the transfer deck where we saw a glimpse of the lake, it was a lake town after all so it would be weird not having any lake close by.
the food court was a different beast all together. there wasn't any queue for tables, it was a free for all thingy so we had to be strategic. we couldn't find any empty table at first walkthrough, we lingered around tables whose occupants were nearly done. we were at their whims, they could stay there for all eternity if they chose to. and sadly, some table occupants really stayed long even after finishing their food. some of them even preselected the next table occupants as if they had some standards as to who should occupy, non japanese speakers had it worse. it was the worst feeling, but getting emotional would only be a deficit. we finally got a table after a lot of patience.
there were lots of open and breezy spaces outside, great for cooling down after the food court battle. that dinosaur was a foreshadowing.
it was a huge mall with lots of shops, impossible to visit each thoroughly. shopping time is always the best time ... if you have money. unfortunately, i have not been in my comforts yet, window shopping is the best i could do in most of these.
late afternoon, learned a lot from what transpired at lunch, we decided to have early dinner. i was fine with any food, i let them choose the restaurant.
and here were the food that day, chicken karaage (fried chicken) with tartar sauce for lunch. my battle win that lunch time was 6 pieces of chicken with rice and soup. not really the best looking but it tasted great.
dinner time was this rice bowl and cold noodle combi. my friends happened to choose this restaurant specializing in beef tongue, i guess they too were surprised when the menu always had some beef tongue sides. my rice bowl was topped with grilled beef tongue and egg yolk, very delicious. and the cold noodle had ginger, cucumber, beef tongue, and apple slices. i was surprised by the fruit in my noodle but it was surprisingly good as well. i had beef tongue tidbits and kimchi as sides, and a mochi dessert. satisfied!
and the last activity of the day, movie! we watched jurassic park in this far away mall. what a jump scare! that movie was surprisingly good. as a dinosaur enthusiast, that satisfied my curiousity of dinosaurs. my friends and i docked at every collision, curled our hands and feet at every almost but not quite moments, and had our hearts pumping till the end. when you ignore the physically impossible things then the movie is great.
this was how the movie screen looked like before the show. it was but a small theater, around a hundred capacity i think. but those sound were just so full, that iconic jurassic park theme never felt more alive.
the movie ended at 10 pm. the mall itself was already closed. a very big empty mall at night just looks scary, felt like a big maze with empty corridors and non running escalators. we were lost. out we went at the nearest exit, still a good walk away from the train station. this whole trip was really an experience. for a family friendly trip specially on a not so great weather, a trip to a mall is something you can consider. a trip to the lake town mall would even be greater.
here we are finally with the train stamp. very simple, the lake and the mall featured prominently. this station was outside tokyo; thus, the circular stamps. i just deduced that shape from the 3 stations i got outside tokyo. a very small sample, but holds true at the moment.
this holiday break proved to be activity filled. staying home would have saved me lots of money. but as the great @revlat35 said that night, holidays are scarce resource, even scarcer than money. so might as well spend the holidays well.
as always, AMPING KANUNAY!
This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io
Height168.0 cm |  | Weight71.7 kg |  | Body Fat% |  |
Waistcm |  | Thighscm |  | Chestcm |  |
